


Purgatory Road

by amoama



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 18:04:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3659910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoama/pseuds/amoama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>There’s a god at the end of this road. Perhaps more than one.</i> </p><p>Odin assists Athelstan in resolving some of the conflicts of Athelstan's afterlife i.e one more way to ensure Athelstan and Ragnar end up together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purgatory Road

There’s a god at the end of this road. Perhaps more than one. Athelstan has longed to greet him all his mortal life. He has never known what it was in him that set him apart, made him fear more for this future life than for his own. This was the only thing in his life it was important to get right. He’s walking the road now, a purgatory road, extending far beyond his still-mortal sight, closer to blindness. Odin, the one-eyed god, would look and know that this road is unending. You stay on it until your own blindness is accepted, and you understand all the things you do not know. 

Athelstan loves Christ. He died with Christ on his lips. He, who suffered as Athelstan suffered, who knows his lusts and temptations and defeated them as Athelstan did not. In failing Christ he accepted Odin too, Frey, Loki, Honir. All sides of one soul, aspects of the gods infused in mortal flesh. The blood of the earth is much less kind than the all-forgiving Christ’s blood. Much easier to reach for when Athelstan knew himself falling short. To accept Christ was to deny many sides of himself; was to wrestle his life’s blood into abeyance. 

He walks the road and does not wonder where it leads. It will take him where he needs to go and what he has been and done and lived is left to Judgment. He will not defend it, nor seek to deny it. He has been what he has been. He has loved and followed with as much strength as he possessed. 

“Christ,” he whispers, feeling the weight of the word, “Odin.” As ever, for Athelstan, it feels the same but with heady pleasure he finds his dual fealty no longer has him ripped in two. He closes his eyes, sees only Floki’s face; the light of Christ, and Thor’s hammer. 

Ragnar is his only regret. He had promised to stay. To travel the road with his friend. Together they would have torn the world apart to find answers - to discover the right questions to ask. Ragnar Lothbrok is his one regret. 

When, at last, centuries and moments later, he opens his eyes, it is Odin who greets him. In some guises he can be as tricky as Loki. He looks a lot like Ragnar Lothbrok. His head is bare, his beard long, body swathed in wolf-fur. Then he blinks and only one eye re-opens and the smile is not the smile of a friend but of an interrogator. 

“Athelstan,” Odin says, “You have been summoned at my command. Your betrayal has caused your death.”

Because the god wears Ragnar’s face, because his heart has long been conflicted, Athelstan trembles as he says, “I did not betray you. I could not.”

“You chose your Christ-god over me. You professed that faith to all in Midgard. You washed clean your soul for Jesus.”

“I did,” for that, too, is true. 

Odin nods, a friend again, “I am not a kind god. Nor am I a forgiving one. I cannot welcome you to Valhalla although your spirit is noble and belongs with my warriors. Your Christ will welcome you should you choose his heaven but you do not belong to him. You have known from the first moment we met, you are mine.”

Belonging is a cloak Athelstan has never before worn. It has always fit badly and he has often preferred to throw it off. He finds he cannot bear to now.

“I am yours but you do not welcome me?” Another truth and a good question. 

“No.”

“What would you have me do?” Belonging is a gift that can be won; a prize that cannot be cheated.

“Nothing that is easy,” And now Odin’s voice changes, deeper suddenly, a crash of wave on rock. His face melts before Athelstan, so that he resembles more the Seer. Terrible lips that pronounce fate. 

“You must find a way to keep your promises. You must not fear uncertainty. You must earn your place in my hall. Your friends will await you by the time you are through.”  
Athelstan does not bow because the god will not respect it. He places his hand on his heart to gesture his acceptance however. Odin is right, as much as Jesus is love, Athelstan’s love is not in heaven. All his future is with Ragnar and Ragnar’s spirit is tied to Odin’s. Athelstan would not go to Jesus without him. He realises now, that for a long time, his fear of the next life had not been for himself alone. 

“You will wander, as I do” says Odin, answering another question that is all part of the same question, “Perhaps I will accompany you, perhaps you shall wander alone. I change my form but not my nature and time has both more meaning and less for those of us mortality has cut loose. The road leads many places. You are giving up a lot for a place at a table that is far less secure. Asgard fades fast and the lights of my hall grow dim.” 

Athelstan opens his eyes and the road is long before him and behind him. It runs through clouds, broken by sun-streamed air. He walks the road to a gap in the cloud. He looks forward and back once more. He looks down at his feet, doubting their form, believing only in the sun warming the back of his neck. The Christ’s love suffuses him, reassuring him. He is loved. His purpose, though, is clear, finally and divinely. In farewell he makes the sign of the cross, and he steps off the road.

**Author's Note:**

> For Lil and Inga. *clings*
> 
> Apologies for all the faux-theology and limited Norse God knowledge.


End file.
